Alex Saviuk brought to Supanova 2013 a memorable seminar that covered the webs of his artistic history since 1977, drawing masked superheros in the comic book industry, from freelancing The Green Lantern at DC Comics to establishing his career at Marvel as the key Spiderman artist.
Before the host could introduce the guest star, Alex began telling the audience about his special comic project opportunity, offered by Marvel’s previous art director, John Romita Sr., which led to him drawing a 32pg sequential art story of Spiderman, involving a green goblin and a dentist. Alex mentioned, “at that time free comic books were given with toothpaste at the dentist”. Definitely the best way to attract new customers.
Not long afterwards, in 1986, Alex left DC Comics for Marvel, to undertake more work and help out with projects, such as Jim Shooter’s ‘New Universe’, created in honour of Marvel’s 25th Anniversary. I was surprised to discover that Alex turned down an assistant position to work on The Phantom newspaper comic strip with Sy Barry. However, during this period and for the next 7 years, Alex worked on inking and pencilling Spiderman in the issues Web of Spiderman, Adventures of Spiderman and The Amazing Spiderman.
The seminar ended with Alex discussing his current work on The Phantom, his most favourite comic book character, within Australia for Frew and in Sweden for Egmont. With the success behind this incredible comic book artist, it made perfect sense for his Phantom logo to appear on this year’s Supanova t-shirts.
Don’t miss out on Alex Saviuk’s latest published stories and comic artworks, follow him on twitter here.
Weta Workshop and their SFX division Weta Digital are basically the kings (and queens) of props and practical/special effects in film and TV. Based out of Miramar, New Zealand, the company became a household name after their amazing work on The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring back in 2001. They have since also become synonymous with director Peter Jackson, working on numerous of his other projects thereafter.
At this year’s Supanova Pop Culture Expo, designer Daniel Falconer – who joined Weta Workshop in 1996 – held a presentation looking at the history of the company in the business, and exploring the processes of some of their most recognisable works. It was great to attend for anyone interested in the field or movie-making in general. Here is a rundown of what was covered, including some quotes (partially paraphrased) to help convey what is better translated through visual language.
I apologise in advance for not being able to capture good shots of the powerpoint slides, but I have included some examples of Falconer’s work. At the outset, Falconer gave us all a digital tour of Weta’s fine work; mostly films that we will all recognise: The LOTR Trilogy, The Last Samurai, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, The Legend of Zorro, King Kong and many more, before explaining how a gig is typically landed for the team and other SFX houses;
When a studio needs a firm, what happens is we bid on that movie and say “we can do ‘x’ amount in this amount of time for this amount of money”.
Then, he got into specifics on certain projects and set pieces – of which one in particular may interest our fellow gamers out there. You’ll know it when you read it;
On The Legend of Zorro: The biggest part of principle work was building the train. We built a 1:4 scale steam train and placed a V4 engine inside it. […] We had one take and filmed with four different cameras as it blew up.
On the Halo movie: I worked for over a year designing on a Halo movie that in the end got canned. It was a real shame as it was shaping up to be an amazing film, and I’m sure it will be made some day. On the back of the movie falling over, we were able to provide the weapons, armor and warthog for a bunch of short films made for the games that you may have seen.
On Avatar: By the time we were brought on, the Na’vi themselves had already been designed, as were the bulk of the environments. […] But we did all the Earth forces; they wanted us to design all the weapons, the body armour the guys wore and tech – including all the amazing big tanks that the Avatars would roll inside, which we actually made full size.
Daniel also recalled his time walking around the set of the film;
I got to walk around in the Op Centre and while some of the digital displays are holographic (those were all in CGI) they did have a lot of big glass screens with stuff projected on them and you really felt like you were walkin the bridge of the Enterprise or something like that. That set was incredible.
Daniel then touched upon the critically acclaimed District 9 – an instant cult classic. Apparently, the original plan for the “Prawns” was much more labor intensive;
We were gonna do the prawns as physical suits but in the end they ended up going digital, which was probably for the better, but we built all the physical suits for them as well. I think the only part of the movie where they used the physical suits in were those really dodgy shots on the magazine covers of Wikus in compromising positions with prawns.
He also spoke about the crew’s workaround to using real chainmail for The Lord of the Rings trilogy;
We pioneered a technique on LOTR to make lightweight plastic chainmail so that the actors wouldn’t be wearing 50kgs of metal as it would be impossible to act in. So we created the lightweight plastic chainmail using a long pipes and we had a machine that would slice it really thin and then we had two guys sit down in a room and put together the rings one by one by one…they were slightly mad when they started, and slightly more mad when they finished. But, they had no fingerprints left so they could’ve gone off to a life of crime and never get caught.
The seminar as we should call it was not all business as Daniel shared a funny story with us;
Stu was one of our armor makers – absolutely nuts! I think it helps to be slightly nuts to work at places like Weta because you have to be very, very intense about your work […] I still remember one weekend, Stu was off to a re-enactment one time and he was just picking up his armor from work and he’s got this beautiful big ol’ black vintage car that he drives around…and I see him walking down the street in full platemail armor – helmet and everything – loading stuff into his car. He jumps in the car, closes the door, down goes his helmet and off he went. I thought, holy crap man you better not get pulled over by a cop!
A colleague of his even wore his armor on a flight (only one hour long) because he couldn’t add any more weight to his luggage or another bag, in pre-9/11 days of course.
Peter Lyon is a sell-taught sword-maker. He had a desk job originally and h wold go jousting on the weekends and attend re-enactments with his friends. And he started making his own swords for that purpose […] More and more, he was doing these things for commission until eventually it became such a big business for him that he quit his day-job and just became a professional sword-maker! […] But we hired him and brought him down to New Zealand and he now makes swords for us for a living. The swords that he made for LOTR are truly exquisite items and they are now exhibited in the Leeds armory in the UK and I’ve been told that he’s the only living swordsman who has his work on display there.
Gollum in the Main Eatery of Wellington Airport
The final piece of in-depth production information naturally focused on The Hobbit. The crew had learnt a lot from their past experiences on the epic LOTR Trilogy, and adapted with new techniques to make things easier, smoother and more convenient;
For LOTR we had to make hobbit feet; each could only be used once and sometimes we would go through two pair a day – you can imagine how many of those we had to make. They were basically like slippers; you’d put your foot into them and they’d glue around the ankle and the top of the foot and then the hair was put on and that kind of helped hide the seams…but that was very labour intensive. […] For the Hobbit we pioneered another new technique whereby the feet were actually more like gumboots in that you pull them all the way up and they secure up above the knee and they’re really tight so they hold themselves on; we didn’t need to use any glue, so they were reusable and there was no edge that had to be blended.
And then we got a whole bunch of those toe-shoes and we added hard rods at the end of the toes. The actors would slip their feet in and they could wiggle their toes and those little rods would wiggle the actual toes at the end of the Hobbit feet.
And of course with all the facial prosthetics, which on the Dwarves were huge… you’re probably talking about delivering 5-6 items per dwarf each day; 13 dwarves, plus scale doubles, plus stunt doubles, plus picture doubles in some cases, so we’re talking about delivering to set every day 50-something prosthetic pieces.
Daniel wrapped up the seminar by showcasing Weta’s work outside of the usual medium – they even built a large animatronic dragon for a nightclub! – and playing a pretty comprehensive showreel. Other than the obvious talent and hard work that goes into creating these masterpieces, I also took away from the seminar something I should’ve already grasped – just how big LOTR is in New Zealand! I mean, that giant Gollum in Wellington Airport is insane! I want to stop over there just to see it live!
This year at Supanova, Nintendo had a strong presence in the form of an interactive booth where fans could come along, sit down and play some video games. What was interesting about this particular booth was that instead of making it about Nintendo’s lineup, it was instead made into a social area where gamers could just come along and relax. Although, that isn’t to say that Nintendo weren’t actually showcasing any of their latest titles, they were and they had a good showing.
At the booth, we were fortunate to get an interview with the Product Manager of the upcoming Pokemon X & Y videogames, Tom. We spoke with him briefly about Nintendo’s presence at the event. You can see our interview in the box below.
Namco Bandai were here at Supanova this year with a selection of playable codes for upcoming games at their booth. The booth itself was flooded all day by fans wanting to get a chance to play some of these upcoming titles. Included in the playable builds were games like GRID2, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, as well as entries in popular Anime franchises, such as One Piece and Naruto. Also available at the booth were flyers with playable codes for the third Beta Test phase of Final Fantasy XIV, which began this weekend.
Us here at Capsule Computers were able to grab a quick interview with the head of Namco Bandai here in Australia at the booth. You can check that out in the box below.
Today at Supanova us here at Capsule Computers stopped by the Z Day (not to be confused with Day Z) Live Action Role Playing Event’s booth on the show floor. For those of you that don’t know what Z Day is, it’s essentially an event where people are able to play what seems to be a live-action zombie survival experience.
What’s interesting about this particular event is that players are given infrared tagging devices and are divided into three classes. You have the Spec Ops class, the Survivor class and the Zombie class. It sounds like an interesting setup. But don’t take my word for it, take a look at the video from a representative of the group in the box below.
Be sure to check out the official site for more info.
Imagine if you will; it’s a rainy Sunday at the Sydney Supanova Expo, fans are wet from the downpour and looking for salvation in the dome hosting the expo, the fans enter but they are met only with a battle of epic proportions! Two teams went head to head on the main stage for the prize of ultimate glory! Ok, so it wasn’t THAT epic, but it was still something really cool!
This year at Supanova Sydney the anime distributor Hanabee had an anime trivia session organised where two specially picked teams would face off on the main stage using their greatest weapons…knowledge of anime! The session went for a good half an hour and hosted five different rounds of questioning e.g. a multiple choice round, a lightning round, etc. The teams were made up of three special anime fans that were chosen and the winners of the challenge got themselves a $100 Hanabee gift card which they could use to buy…well…Hanabee products! The losers, well, they went home with nothing but shame…no Hanabee gave them a $50 gift card for trying their best and participating so nobody really went home a looser.
The questions were all anime based and could’ve been almost about anything. One of the questions was based on the series Digimon Frontier and another was based on the series K-On! so it just goes to show the range of knowledge the contestants would’ve had to have to get ahead. At the end of the day it was the team on the announcers left that went away the victors with their $100 Hanabee gift card and the loosing team just with their $50 gift cards. The audience had fun and so did the contestants and really isn’t that all that matters? No. Winning is all that matters, winning and free anime.
You can see all the pictures from the Hanabee Anime Game Show below in the Image Gallery and don’t forget to hit up our comments section below and drop us a line.
After spending two years in a coma caused by a traffic accident, Shiki Ryougi awakens with amnesia. Inexplicably, she finds, in turn, that she has also obtained “Mystic Eyes of Death Perception” in which she can see the invisible lines of mortality that hold every living and non-living thing together. Working for a small independent agency, Shiki attempts to unravel the baffling mystery behind a series of abnormal, horrifying incidents, but are they a foreshadowing that leads to something even more tragic and ominous? Things are not what they appear to be on the surface, but what dark revelations lie underneath? This is a modern occult-action thriller where Shiki must tackle supernatural incidents with her special abilities while searching for a reason to live.
Vividred Operation
They sure are vivid
Akane Isshiki, an innocent 14-year-old girl, lives a poor, but happy, life with her level-headed little sister Momo, who takes care of all the household chores by herself, and their grandfather Kenjiro, who is a genius inventor but creates nothing but useless gizmos. On clear days, they can see the artificial island Blue Island out across the water. And rising from the center of it is the Manifestation Engine, the revolutionary invention that solved all the world’s energy problems. The peaceful future that everyone had dreamed of had arrived. Tranquil days where everyone could be happy. But then, the world is confronted by a new threat. The mysterious Alone, who have appeared out of nowhere to attack the Manifestation Engine.
Bakuman
The anime based on the manga about making manga
Top student Akito is willing to do anything to become a hit writer in the Japanese comics industry, including manipulating his unsure classmate Mashiro into becoming his illustrator. Before long the pair have their backs up against the wall, fighting for a chance to get noticed in the intense world of manga publishing. But then, an unlikely series of events puts them face to face with what real comic artists have to give up: love, their health, and maybe even their futures. Get ready for a compelling race through the world of publishing, not limited to mere glimpses into the industry, but instead all-out panoramic views packed with insider details!
While there has been no details regarding Vividred and Bakuman’s DVD, The Garden of Sinners has been given an October release. The Limited Edition Premium DVD Boxset will retail for $149.95 SRP and will contain 8 discs, 14 postcards and a 36 page booklet. For more information, visit Madman’s official site and Facebook page.
Zack Snyder made his way down to Australia ahead of the Man of Steel Sydney premiere tomorrow night at Event Cinemas, George St. and appeared at the expo to grant us a last-minute addition to the FilmInk theatre panel line-up. It was actually announced during the events of Day 2! The following are some key quotes (paraphrased) from the Q&A session; mostly – naturally – revolving around Man of Steel, releasing here on June 27th.
We all have an idea from trailers and other promotional material, but Snyder elucidated us on what his intentions were with his Superman film and how he pulled it back down to realism;
The main thing I wanted to do was take the idea of Superman and image a point of view where you look through his eyes and feel what he feels. […] And I wanted him to beat the shit out of some people!
It’s really also about the human man that is inside Superman. […] This man who is still struggling to be accepted by society.
One member of the audience asked the question of how the project came to be, which sprouted from a lunch between Zack and Deborah Snyder and Christopher Nolan and his producing wife Emma Thomas;
I got a call from Chris and emma for lunch. On the phone, Chris said “Oh, I’m gonna talk about Superman at the lunch, is that cool?” and I was like “okaaay…yeah, of course”. […] Then during the lunch we kind of kicked around our ideas of what Superman should be about and like. He pitched me a little bit of his idea and I thought it was super cool…super in the usual way; sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!
The thing that’s amazing is that Chris is an amazing producer because he said to me: “Hollywood makes two kinds of movies – films by committee and movies by filmmakers. And those committee made movies suck!” So he always backed me from the beginning.
One of the more interesting topics for filmmakers in attendance was how Snyder handled the cinematography and dealt with the speed of these Kryptonian warriors. In past films, the action was put in slow-motion just so it could be clearly visualised. Snyder took a completely different approach;
The main thing I tried to do is I wanted to try and make the movie in the most realistic way I can [with respect to the rules of the characters and world]. The more embellished the cinematography is, the more it gets away from you. […] We tried to make it that he would be hard to photograph or film because he’s so fast! And when the fighting starts, it’s just mind-blowing!
Snyder continued to shed some light on some of the major elements of the film – character design, villain choice and the score;
On Superman’s new suit: I love the underwear personally! I tried hard to get the underwear in. […] I got the costume artist to try it out and I was like, “wow…that’s underwear isn’t it!” [Realising the Sillyness of it]
On the choice of Villain: Well, I picked Zod for the movie because he is the first battle where you can imagine he is the equal of Superman, at least physically. He poses a real challenge physically. For future films, there can be a progression in terms of the ‘chess move guys’. […] My favorite villain is probably Lex Luthor though.
On Hans Zimmer’s score: Even when we were making the movie, we had to pretend those movies [Superman I-IV] didn’t exist. […] When I sat down with Hans, he was petrified by the frickin’ thing – as he should be and as I was. […] The theme was that it’s not all about the glory and himself for Superman.
One attendee asked a loaded question that garnered what could be considered a controversial answer from the director. He was an aspiring filmmaker who asked Snyder’s thoughts on piracy, specifically as an avenue for independent filmmakers to get their work seen without having to “go through the system”;
As long as you’re not pirating my movies! [Jokingly] […] I do believe that if you’re really into it, then no one’s going to stop you. If your passion is so that you would break the law to make it, then that’s correct.
Finally, if you have wondered whether or not Henry Cavill was top choice for the starring role, here’s your answer;
I really wanted Henry from the beginning. […] We wanted to test-fit the suit to see what it looked like on him, but we didn’t have our costume yet, so we got the Christopher Reeve costume; they brought it over from the archives.The guys were like “oh, you cant touch that!…we thought you just wanted to look at it!” […] But we got the pattern so we sewed an exact copy and put Henry in it. You know how some people, you just look at them costumed up and you say “look, that’s a pretty good costume”. But looking at him, we just thought “look, it’s Superman!”.
And soon after, the panel was over and the very busy Snyder was on his way. Something to leave you with is the answer to the not-so-age old question – who would win between his Watchmen‘s Dr. Manhattan and Superman: “Dr. Manhattan would win for sure! Are you serious? That’s ridiculous!”
Moments ago, one of the bigger Anime conventions here in Australia, SMASH! announced that they will be hosting an Anime dance party themed on the popular Vocaloid music selection inside of Japan. This party will be held in Sydney and is open to all Anime (and non) fans aged 18 and over.
The dance party itself will be host to a wide variety of music from the immensely popular virtual Vocaloid popstar, Hatsune Miku, and will have renown Japanese DJ Hachioji P (8#Prince) providing mixes. Also at the event is another popular DJ, Kz, from the group Livetune.
The Press Release goes into great detail about the careers of both of the DJ’s. We have reproduced the most relevant and interesting sections below –
Hachioji P spearheaded his career in music creation with the Vocaloid program featuring the vocals of Hatsune Miku. With a view count of over 8million, his most famous works include “Sweet Devil” and “Electric Love”, made in collaboration with MMD (Miku Miku Dance) producer Wakamura P. These music videos feature electric sounds with a dance music base, and high quality video taking him instantly into the Vocaloid Music World’s hall of fame. Ranking high with his music releases, he has gained the attention of audiences around the world with features from NHK’s Weekly News, and tie-up theme song titled “Fukayomi feat. Hatsune Miku” which was used as the theme song for the show attracting over half a million views in just 5 days.
Hachioji P has also collaborated with famous creators such as kz of livetune for the Playstation Vita software “Hatsune Miku – Project DIVA – f” with the split release of “Weekender Gir” and “fake doll”. More recently, he has been involved in producing work for real vocalists such as Shouko Nakagawa, Hikari Shiina. He has also done arrangement work for Kikkawa Yuu, Watanabe Mayu (AKB48) and Hirano Aya.
New Album ViViD WAVE will be released under his new record label Toy’s Factory on the 17th of July.
Kz (livetune) famous for his album and single releases using the Vocaloid software and featured vocals of Hatsune Miku, first made his major debut with “Re: package” in August 2008 ranking 5th on the weekly charts in Japan. Kz has contributed to the world wide success of Hatsune Miku with his hit song “Redial” where the music video was created in collaboration with world famous designer creator Takashi Murakami. His best known work so far is undoubtedly the song “Tell Your World” that brought Hatsune Miku to theadvertising campaign in Japan for Google Chrome web browser. This song received over 1million views in the first week, and is currently at over 6.6million views.
More recently, he has collaborated with various famous artists and commercial tie-ups, composing songs for KOTOKO, ClariS, Maon Kurosaki, Ryo of Supercell, Hachioji P, Nakajima Megumi,TM Revolution, Zedd and much much more.
In June 2013 he released “Take Your Way” which includes vocals from the hit band SEKAI NO OWARI his latest work.
Vocaloid Night 2013 will be held at the Pontoon Bar in Sydney at Darling Harbour on the 10th of August. Be sure to check out the official website for ticketing and more info.
Just this afternoon at this years Sydney Supanova we got word from Hanabee that they have scored the license for the series; Lupin The Third: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko. There has been some great news that came out of Hanabee in the past couple days and this sweet release is just the icing on the cake that is awesome anime releases. The series is thirteen episodes long and will be released in two separate parts; part one will be released on the 16th of October and part two will be released on the 20th of November. The release is to mark the 40th Anniversary of this huge series and what a great one it is. There will be a limited edition combo pack and hardcover book that will be released along side the standard editions. The animation studio behind it is the same that did both Baccano and Knight Rayearth.
If you have no idea what Lupin The Third: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko is then keep on reading because you’re about to find out. It is a series directed by Sato Yamamoto who did Redline, Eureka Seven, Samurai Champloo and much more. The music of the series will be done by none other than Shinichiro Watanabe himself who directed Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Kids On The Slope which is another great Hanabee release.
The official Hanabee series synopsis is as follows:
Behind every great man, there is a great woman. A cult has become the target of Lupin III’s latest heist but he might not be the only one after the treasures that their leader has kept hidden. It seems the alluring lover of the cult leader may just be a thief herself and more than capable to handle Lupin in the race for the treasure. But in this chase to outsmart the other, this little game takes a twist for the unexpected when Lupin has set his sights beyond the cult’s treasure to the female thief herself. Her name, Fujiko Mine, and Lupin may just be a little infatuated with this femme fatale beauty. What he doesn’t know is that behind her wily charms lies a greater tragedy at hand.
This is the story of how Lupin III, the greatest thief of his generation, met his match in Fujiko Mine.
Once again Part one of Lupin The Third: A Woman Called Mine Fujiko will be released on the 16th of October so keep an eye out and start getting excited. Also don’t forget to hit up our comments section below to drop us a line.
